Homemade Pickled Ginger / Gari

Young ginger is a summer season ingredient; so it's best to pick it up fresh at your local Asian grocery store that has it before summer ends. I picked this up from Portland's Fubonn Asian supermarket on the southeast side of the metro. Inexpensive, for what it is. Though, I'm not going to break even on cost with preparing it into pickled ginger compared to what it costs already prepared. At least it won't have any of that nasty pink food coloring.

I made it from this recipe ratio from Just One Cookbook and let's just say that I'm very disappointed in the thinness that a Cook's Illustrated top recommended mandoline has done with these ginger slices. I could have sliced them thinner with a knife. They taste OK, though, more like ginger pickles than the pickled ginger you'd eat with sushi. There was no pink to the young ginger to begin with, so these didn't turn a shade of pink while fermenting. In fact, they are of a light brown color.

TheFoodening Blog: pickled ginger, ready to eat

Dill Pickled Vegetables

So far the only candidates for this dill pickle recipe are cucumbers and carrots. I made 2 pints + 2 quarts of dill pickles and carrots; although, the carrots are only in one of the quart jars because I ran out of cucumbers. Because I lack the equipment to properly can a quart-sized jar, the quart jars became refrigerator pickles.

Ingredients

sliced, quartered, or whole pickling cucumbers (~ 2 lbs)
fresh dill leaves, roughly chopped into 4" pieces
2 garlic cloves, peeled and trimmed, per jar
organic carrot sticks (optional)

the brine:

1 1/2 c white vinegar
1 1/2 c filtered water
1-2 tbsp kosher salt

Bring brine ingredients to a boil in a medium pot. Remove from heat when the salt has dissolved. Set aside until ready to use.

Directions

The order of operations is pretty important. You want all the floaty stuff to start at the bottom and then wedge it all into place by packing the jar with the vegetables. First things to the bottom are the garlic and dill leaves.

Wash and trim the ends of the vegetables. The flower end of the cucumber is what makes it go soft in the brine and nobody wants to eat limp pickles. Pack each jar full. Pour brine on top and leave 1/2" space at the top. Wipe the rims of the jars with a damp paper towel before placing and securing the lid and jar bands.

Start the timer when the water comes back up to a boil after adding the jars. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 24 hours before shelving.

For the refrigerator pickles, skip the hot water bath. Simply place the sterilized lid and tighten the jar band. Put in refrigerator to cure for a week before eating.

Note: This recipe assumes you have sterilized jars, lids, and jar bands ready to go.

Note to future self: Add brine to jars you intend to can. If you run out of brine, make more.

The ratio was sourced from here (ratios mucked around with since I wasn't about to make 7 quarts of pickles).

Radish Kimchi

This is also known as daikon kimchi or Korean "kkakdugi", though it could probably use a lot more chili flakes for that. This recipe is from a book called Asian Pickles by Karen Solomon. When I weighed the radish, I found that I didn't quite have two pounds. I reduced the amount of salt and chili flakes for the initial ferment cycle. 

Ingredients

1 daikon radish, about 2 lbs
1 tbsp fine sea salt
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled and minced
2 tbsp Korean chili flakes
2 tbsp fish sauce

Directions

1. Peel and cube the radish into 1/2" pieces. Toss in a large bowl with salt and sugar. Let the water drain from the radish for 30 minutes. Drain the water and reserve the radish.

2. In the same bowl, add the rest of the ingredients and stir to combine.

3. Cover with a lid and set bowl in a cool, dark corner in the kitchen. Let ferment for 1-3 days. Stir once each day it ferments.

4. Transfer pickled radish to a clean glass jar and cap. Store in refrigerator. Eat within two weeks.

Pickled Kohlrabi

I thought about taking a photo of this batch, but it just looks like some white vegetable in a pickling brine in a jar. It is not terribly exciting. With the bounty of summertime vegetables, the kohlrabi was never at the top of my list of things to buy. It is part of the cabbage family and as such, it will probably cause bloating and gas if you consume a lot of it in one sitting. At the very least, it is very high in fiber. And, for its bulk, it is very low in calories. Compared to other vegetables, it is kind of expensive to buy and not all the grocery stores carry them. They are seasonal and I was surprised to see them on the grocery store shelf during summer. I thought they were an autumn vegetable. Anyhow, onto the pickling...

After peeling the kohlrabi with a vegetable peeler and trimming off the hard, woody part of the stem with a sharp knife, I used the narrow blade disc attachment of the food prep machine to slice all the kohlrabi. With a little prep, I was able to slice a couple pounds of this vegetable in a few minutes. It's a lot easier than slicing the vegetable by hand.

If you have pickling salt, by all means use it. I do not and am using sea salt as a substitute.

Pickling Brine

2 lbs kohlrabi, purple or white (doesn't matter which)
2 c distilled white vinegar (or 1 c distilled white vinegar + 1 c apple cider vinegar)
2 c water
2 tbsp raw honey
2 tbsp sea salt
1 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled and minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
1/4 tsp red chili flakes

Directions

1. Sterilize jars and lids for canning and set aside until ready to use.

2. Clean and trim kohlrabi. Slice into thin slices with a food processor, mandoline, or with a sharp knife. Divide slices evenly into jars.

3. Combine vinegar, water, honey, sea salt, ginger, garlic, black peppercorns, and chili flakes in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add brine to jars. Place lids on jars and tighten with jar bands.

4. Process using a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

This batch made 3 pints.

Pickled Beets

For this batch of beets, I seem to have undercooked them by just a bit. They boiled for an hour too, but apparently it wasn't long enough. These were small to medium sized beets. Despite some being "fork tender", others still had some crunch. I suppose beets can be eaten raw. I just haven't eaten it that way. I also boiled these whole without removing the stems or roots. Just scrub them clean before cooking.

I've read that the only difference between kosher salt and pickling salt is what else is in it. Table salt cannot be used since it is usually laced with iodine, which can make a cloudy brine. Pickling salt has no added iodine; sea salt has minimal iodine and is an acceptable substitute; and kosher salt has added yellow prussiate of soda (at least the Morton's brand does) which also discolors the brine.  

The pickling liquid is enough for 5 pints of beets and can be doubled.

Pickling Liquid

3-5 lbs of raw whole beets
1 c organic granulated sugar
1 tbsp sea salt
1 c apple cider vinegar
1 c distilled white vinegar
whole cloves, 4 per jar
whole peeled garlic cloves, 2 per jar
1 c beet water (water that the beets cooked in)

Directions

1. In a large pot, add raw beets and fill with enough water to cover them. Boil for at least an hour or until the beets are fork tender. Remove from heat and add whole beets to a large bowl filled with ice water. This will help cool the beets down. With the faucet running cold water, peel the beets with a paring knife and trim the stem and root off. Set aside until all the beets are peeled.

2. Using a sharp knife and cutting board, thinly slice the beets.

3. Sterilize jars in the oven (washed and air dried in a 225 degrees F oven for 15 minutes) or boiled for 10 minutes; sterilize lids and jar bands in boiling water.

4. Add to each jar: two peeled garlic cloves and four whole cloves. Add beet slices and fill to the top with pickling liquid with a 1/4" headspace at the top. Secure lid and band to the jar.

5. Process jars in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. Remove jars from water and set onto wood racks or a wood cutting board. As the jars cool down, the lids should each make a loud "pop" noise as the pressure sucks in the lid and seals the jar. Let the jars stand at room temperature for 24 hours.

This batch made 5 pints.

Quick Pickled Sliced Jalapenos

This recipe is easy to make and the stinky cloud of jalapenos dissipates quickly if you open the window or turn the fan on. I first had these on top of Indian fry bread at a local event just recently and they were pretty darn good. I also found that if you hold the jalapeno by the stem, it's much easier to slice into rings. This batch made 1.5 pints because I used more than 10 green jalapenos.

Makes: 1 pint

Ingredients

3/4 c water
3/4 c distilled white vinegar
3 tbsp organic granulated sugar
1 tbsp sea salt
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 tsp dried oregano
10 large jalapeno peppers, sliced into rings

Directions

1. In a medium-sized saucepan, combine water, vinegar, sugar, salt, garlic, and oregano and bring to a boil.

2. Stir in peppers and remove from heat. Let cool for 10 minutes before packing into clean glass jars. Use tongs to pack the peppers in, then pour the pickling liquid on top.

3. Refrigerate until needed.

Corned Beef with Cabbage

This is the first year I haven't taken the lazy uninspired route of making this dish...which typically meant going to the grocery store and buying the corned beef already brined in a neat little package. What is a little distressing is that the spices I had to acquire for this dish costed almost as much as the brisket; and the meat was on sale for St Patrick's Day. This dish is an expensive cooking experiment (roughly $15 in ingredients, excluding spices already on hand). I hope I don't screw it up too badly. 

Brisket is a pretty unforgiving piece of meat that needs to be slow roasted for its connective muscle tissue to break down into delightful pleasures of eating. If you cook it too fast on high heat, the meat gets tough. If you cook it too slow on high heat, the meat is still tough. But, if you don't want to bother with basting the meat every 40-50 minutes while it roasts in the oven there is another modern convenience called the slow cooker; or as it says on my unit...a Crockpot. I am using Steamy Kitchen's recipe process for this because it looks really easy to do. One of my beer friends advised against using a Guinness dark beer so I am using Pike's Naughty Nelly artisan ale instead. No, I still don't drink beer. I don't care for bitter in my beverages, and while I love the smell of fermenting hops (smells like bread, go figure) it's just not for me. Beer is great in recipes though, like beer can chicken, steamed with clams or mussels, or in chocolate stout cupcakes.

Homemade Kimchi

Korean-styled Pickled Cabbage ("kimchi")

Napa cabbage is a pretty versatile vegetable. It's heart (innermost leaves and core) are slightly sweeter than the outer leaves and is often used in Asian vegetable soups. It can be fried with a bit of oil and dried shrimp as a traditional vegetable dish. And, it can be made into one of Korea's national dishes, kimchi. The price of commercially bought kimchi often reflects the current market price on napa cabbage, and can be pretty expensive for a large jar of it. Doing it from scratch means that a few notable ingredients are left out are sugar and preservatives.

The sweetness comes from other ingredients, mainly the inner heart of the cabbage, a vidalia onion, an apple, and a pear. The longer it ferments, the more sour the kimchi will become. It's still edible, but most sites that have a similar recipe recommend that you eat it within the week or at most a few weeks.

The Foodening Blog - kimchi ready for fermenting

The original recipe walk-through comes from here. I didn't deviate from the original directions much. Large tongs can be used instead of gloves to mix the cabbage with the chili paste. I used a Fuji apple, a D'anjou pear, and a Vidalia onion.

When napa cabbage is in season, it should be about $0.99/lb. A healthy head will be about 2-3 pounds. Be sure to have a large cleaned glass jar with a lid on hand that is pint or quart sized. You can certainly have a large jar than that if you really enjoy kimchi. You'll know that it is fermenting when the liquid starts to bubble inside the jar.

The actual prep time for this recipe is about an hour. The additional time needed is for the ingredients to brine (4 hours) and/or ferment (24 hours).

Ingredients

One napa cabbage
1/4 c. sea salt + 1 c. water
1/4 c. ground red chili peppers + 1/4 c. warm water
1 tbsp garlic, minced
1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
2 tbsp fish sauce
4 stalks green onions, thinly sliced
1 c. water + 1/2 apple + 1/2 pear + 1/2 yellow onion

Directions

1. In a measuring cup, dissolve 1/4 c. sea salt in water.

2. In a small bowl, mix red chili peppers with 1/4 c. warm water to form a paste.

3. In a large metal (non-plastic) bowl, combine chopped napa cabbage and salt water. Let this sit for 4 hours. Turn the cabbage every couple hours so that the white part of the leaves brine evenly.

4. After the cabbage has finished brining in the salt water, rinse it under cold water three or four times to remove all the salt water. The cabbage will still taste salty and there is no need to add additional salt.

5. In a food prep, blend into a slurry: half an onion, half a pear, half an apple with one cup of water.

6. Transfer the rinsed cabbage to a large bowl and add the red chili paste, garlic, ginger, green onions, fish sauce, and onion slurry. Mix thoroughly using tongs.

7. Fill jars with cabbage and leftover liquid. Be sure to not fill the jars to the top since the ingredients will expand slightly during fermentation. Cap jars and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours before storing in the refrigerator.

The Foodening Blog: Kimchi in Jars

Pickled Ginger

Ever buy a stub of fresh ginger from the grocery store and end up using it in just one or two dishes, then look in horror as it gets all shriveled in the fridge or on the counter by the garlic? Well, here is a way to add another month of life to the ginger. At sushi restaurants, I used to nibble on the pickled ginger with a bit of wasabi mustard and some soy sauce, though not as a palate cleanser, but simply to eat it. I haven't been able to slice it thin enough at home to replicate the ginger you get at the store or restaurant. Maybe I need a much sharper knife than the RADA knife I picked up last year. I am avoiding artificial colorants. The pink tinge can be added naturally by boiling a small red beet with the vinegar before adding the ginger to the pickling liquid.

Another way to keep the essence of ginger around is to peel the fresh ginger root and slice it into long, thin matchsticks. Then dry the ginger and keep it as a dried spice in a glass jar. I've found this also works pretty well when cooking up clear broths, steaming seafood, and to add to meat-based stews when I've run out of fresh ginger. Nothing tastes quite like fresh ginger and the flavor is far more mild after it's been dried.

At some point I would like to procure a small ceramic ginger grater. I saw it once at the Portland Home & Garden show a couple years ago, and now I can't find it anywhere. It's used in Asian cuisine a lot to get fresh ginger juice from grated ginger. Onto the recipe...

Ingredients

1/2 lb fresh ginger root, peeled and thinly sliced
1/3 c. rice vinegar
2 tbsp cooking mirin
2 tbsp sake (dry and of drinking quality, but not fusion-flavored or carbonated)
2 tbsp organic granulated sugar or brown sugar

Directions

1. Scrub the ginger under water with a mushroom brush or the rough side of a sponge to remove all the dirt. Blanch it in boiling water for a minute or so, then drain.

2. Combine the cooking mirin, sake, and sugar in a small pot and bring it to a boil until the sugar dissolves. To alter the natural beige color of the ginger to a pinkish color, you could add a small red beet in this step. Let cool.

3. In a clean, sterilized jar add the ginger and pour the vinegar over the ginger. Cover the jar and use the ginger within a week, or up to a month if kept in a refrigerator.